Silverstone is as British as it gets, but Formula One cannot escape the divisions gripping its homelandIs there anything more quintessentially British than the Grand Prix at Silverstone? A petrol-fuelled romp in the heart of the Midlands couched among country lanes and English villages, the 52-lap race is an unmissable fixture in the sporting summer. This weekend delivered excitement, nostalgia and glory, all wrapped in a neat carbon‑shaped package.The 10th round of the Formula One world championship faced stiff competition this year, with both Wimbledon and the Cricket World Cup scheduled for the same Sunday. Such clash of commitments suggests that major sporting event planners should coordinate timetables; if not for viewing numbers, at least to ease the FOMO (fear...
Scuderia admit risks need to be taken in Montreal, it’s looking good for Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc’s season is becoming a fast track of learning experiencesMercedes came within a whisker of losing a win that was in their hands in Monaco. Having put Lewis Hamilton on the medium tyres, the team principal, Toto Wolff, admitted the British driver had saved their race in bringing his car home and preventing Max Verstappen having a chance to pass. It was welcome for giving the race a tense climax that would otherwise have been lacking. Hamilton was vocal about his concerns throughout, which have been criticised but are the understandable complaining of a driver in a pressure situation he could do nothing...
Swiss has a complex task as team principal – ending the Mercedes stranglehold while F1 faces environmental concernsWith his shock of dark hair and his round black-framed spectacles, Mattia Binotto looks as though he might have taken his masters degree at the University of Modena in the theories of the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci rather than motor vehicle technology. But it is the 49-year-old engineer whose success or failure in a new role is likely to define Formula One’s short-term bid to preserve its credibility as it begins its 70th season in Melbourne on Sunday.In a world increasingly aware of climate change, the sport is engaged in a bout of introspection. Does an intrinsically frivolous exercise that so flagrantly depends...
Ferrari lead the field, Red Bull-Honda are showing promise and the midfield scrap looks set to be even more hotly contestedThat Ferrari have a good, potentially great, car this year was clear by the end of the first day of testing when Sebastian Vettel was positively purring at how the SF90 had performed. By the end of day eight, his optimism had been entirely justified and they must be considered favourites going into the first race in Melbourne on 17 March. Definitive judgments from testing are dangerous but the Scuderia’s form is impossible to ignore. Vettel set the fastest lap, with a time of 1min 16.221sec. They completed 997 laps in total, second only to Mercedes, while their engines look...
Formula One has come out of hibernation with some teams looking in better shape than others and questions over marketing activitiesA few days ago a man called James Allison made Formula One feel like something other than a lost cause. In a short promotional film the technical director of the Mercedes team – the winner of the last five world championships – explained what it takes to create and build a new grand prix car. His enthusiasm dispelled a lot of the scepticism surrounding the sport’s future.Allison made a compelling argument that F1’s core activity has not really changed over the decades. What his colleagues were doing over the winter as they assembled the new W10, which made its debut...